


Little Girl

by blazingphoenix



Category: Fringe
Genre: Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-08
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-13 19:43:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazingphoenix/pseuds/blazingphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The girl they come back to is not the girl they left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely follows on from 'Hold the Line'

The girl they come back to is not the girl they left behind.

She is no longer the little girl in pigtails, who's blond strands sway side to side as she runs, little legs moving under her flowery dress.  Her hands no longer seem small to her father's, no longer curls around her mother's fingers.  No longer is she small enough to carry on back or front.

What she is is a woman, a woman who stands tall with a darkness in her eyes.  Who's hair flows freely, frames her face in golden light in the darkness of the world around her.  She wears jeans, not dresses, with boots tied tightly over them, mud and grit giving them an extra layer.  Her arms hide her hands, which are in turn hidden by the leather coat she holds so close to her, closing herself to the world they left her in.

She is the woman who hugs her father for the first time in 20 years on the train, hugs her mother a week later.  Who was once the little girl who stood below their waist, reached up to hold their hands; now stands at their height, simply reaches under their arms for a hug.  She is no longer the innocence, has seen things worse than death and experienced them too.

The girl they come back to is not the girl left behind, because that girl is now a woman.

And they don't know what this woman is like.  They haven't grown up with her, raised her and come to learn her likes, her quirks.  She is a stranger with their face, her father's eyes and her mother's mouth.  They know nothing of her.

She is a woman who is only physically 10 years younger than them, an age too close to be parent and child; rather brother and sister.  And it's not just the physical divider either, but the emotional one too.  They remember the 4 year old girl, happy and full of life, except now she's a 24 year old woman, who's had to grow up without her parents to support her.  She remembers a mother and father who disappeared when she was 4, and look exactly the same 20 years on.

Nothing is the same and nothing will ever be the same between them, because the past is the past: there's nothing they can do to change it.  They can't change the fact that they've been missing from their daughter's life for 20 years; missed her childhood, her teenage years and her beginnings as a young adult.  They've missed the defining moments of her life, and those are things that can never be replaced.

But the past is the past; what matters now is what they make of the future.  Because even though the woman standing in front of them is not a little girl, she is still their daughter.  Nothing can ever change that.

This is the woman who is like them in so many ways; from her father's smarts to her mother's determination.  She is the one who looked for them, believed in their survival even when all the odds were against.  Who tricked her way into society as she grew up, hid her past under a mask to the world outside.  She is the woman who has done all that to see her parents, because she is the little girl who still needs them.  And they will love her, as she will love them, because she is their daughter; something neither time nor age will ever change.

The girl they come back to may no longer look like the little girl they left behind, but the woman standing in front of them will still always be her.


End file.
